Wayne Art Center Online Exhibition: A Review from Afar

For some odd reason, this DMV critic tonight decided to take a look at the Wayne Art Center Online Faculty Exhibition.  Why is it odd? Well... I'm in the DMV and the Wayne Art Center is waaay out in Wayne, PA.

This is a really good show; in fact, it is quite a good show!

Super hard to pick a Best in Show when there are so many talented artists here... to start, Ellen Cooper s an outstanding portrait painter - really top of the food chain portraitist is that rare ability to not only capture a true likeness (I assume), but also something unique about the person being depicted.  Anne Graham is also a really good portrait artist - see her Helen here.

ELLEN COOPER
Lucca - Oil on Linen

Both of Valerie Craig's entries are also oil and also superbly done. She has a rough brush which gives her oils an interesting texture which is gorgeous and deceptively appearing to be easy to do, when in fact it is a skill that only a truly gifted painter can deliver and Craig is indeed gifted!

VALERIE CRAIG
The Hook - Oil

Also liked Louise Dusiberre's interesting light capture in her August Reflections pastel.  Joe Gyurcsak's Patina is a quizzical titled (I don't see what I understand to be a "patina") but it does deliver a really outstanding painting of a most pedestrian subject, which he elevates from the mundane to the sublime by the sheer gift of art. Neal Hughes also uses his vast talents to work on the truck subject, and once again delivers - his oil Ranch Truck is a top notch painting. Interesting how two different painters, both choosing a similar subject in different settings, deliver. Hughes muted colors, and his choice of color for the truck, makes it a magnet for the eyes - well done!

JOE GYURCSAK
Patina - Acrylic on Panel 

Kudos to Georganna Lenssen for taking a "real" subject and use powerful abstraction skills to deliver the reality of the subject submerged in a really attractive pseudo abstract!  Stefanie Lieberman can also paint really well! She's sort of (in my mind) in the same painting trance as Lenssen, but Lieberman pushes the reality a bit further to the real and in the process can flex some damn good cloud-painting artistic muscles!

 I give Nichole Michaud's the "Best Abstract of the Show" award for her oil pastel on paper titled Eighty Three.  Along the same lines, Sharon McHugh can really paint flowers! See them here.

On the subject of flowers (there are quite a few in the show)... remember what I wrote about Lenssen and Lieberman? Claudia Rilling does the same thing and her Peonies practically explode out of the canvas on a burst of abstract color.

Jon Redmond painted beets, not flowers, but they are just as beautifully delivered! Just like two old trucks discussed earlier, art is a powerful vehicle (no pun intended) to elevate through the power of a good painter.

JON REDMOND
Beets on a Plate - Oil on Board

Landscape artists Kathryn Stats and Doug Tweddale are related by a deep understanding of the power of color to deliver a great landscape -- they do not "copy" the landscape, but re-invent the landscape as smartly applied pigment on a surface - it works to deliver the wonder of our planet.

Stuart White has my top vote for the best watercolors in the show. See them here.

Frankly... there's not a single bad work in the show! Congrats to the faculty!

When you miss all the wires...

When you miss all the wires...

The Navy Chief and the Pilot
1983 US Navy drawing by F. Lennox Campello

Isla Herida

Cuba - Isla Herida
1981 Acrylic painting on gessoed stone, 4 x 9.5 inches
Florencio Lennox Campello

 

The Snipe was always the first one...

Another one... As I noted earlier, when I was in the Navy I did dozens of illustrations and cartoons for many newspapers (such as The Stars & Stripes), and hundreds of sketches of my shipmates and other US Navy sailors in ports in the US and European ports. Most of these drawings, cartoons, and paintings were given away to my shipmates over the years, but I also kept many of them, and I see them often being sold at auctions online and by galleries - I have no idea where this one is today! I digitized some old slides!

The Snipe was always the first to spot the liberty boat
1975 US Navy watercolor by F. Lennox Campello

Wanna work at the Washington Glass School?

The Washington Glass School and Studio is seeking candidates for position of full-time Studio Coordinator!

Details here.

Located just outside of Washington DC, WGS is a privately owned, public access art studio. Washington Glass School and Studio is dedicated to creating and promoting kiln-formed glass and mixed-media sculpture.

 Washington Glass School and Studio has 3 primary missions:

• 1. Community involvement through engagement of large-scale public artworks
• 2. Educate through teaching art classes and mixed-media classes
• 3. Promote and support Washington Glass Studio artists

They are "looking for someone who is excited about fabricating artwork, hands-on glass and art education, community involvement, and managing a studio. We seek someone who wants to learn about the contemporary art world and to expose themselves to  new techniques and mediums. The Studio Coordinator serves two roles: assisting studio artist Tim Tate and coordinating an active mixed media studio and school.. A great candidate will be self-motivated with positive energy, who can independently organize and manage studio activities, as well as collaborate closely with all staff and studio residents."

 Start date: May 1st, 2021.

Isla Golpeada

"Isla Golpeada"
5x7 inches, c. 1980 by Florencio Lennox Campello
Hand-colored monoprint with embossed surface bumps and poem by Jose Marti

 

The Best New Passive Income Ideas for Your Art Business in 2021

 Check out Artwork Archive's tips and ideas here.

Frazetta style

 The late, great master Frank Frazetta was one of my very early idols and my main inspiration for applying to art school at the University of Washington.

Little did I know in 1977 that the art world thought little of "illustrators", regardless of their impact, skill and artistic footprint.

The below drawing, titled "The Hunted" is a pen and ink drawing on paper, and was part of my application package to the school. I recall the otherwise affable and nice career counselor denigrating it as "illustration rather than art."

Feh!

THE HUNTED
1977 ink drawing by F. Lennox Campello done in the style of Frank Frazetta

Opportunity for Artists

BlackRock Center for the Arts invites artists from the mid-Atlantic region to submit their work to be considered for two exhibition opportunities. The first is their biennial juried printmaking exhibit, INK IT: Contemporary Print Practices, with online entries due this Sunday, January 17.

ENTRY FEE:

$20 - Professional Artists (up to 3 works per entry)

$10 - Student Artists (up to 3 works per entry)

The second opportunity is their annual open call for exhibition proposals, for solo and group shows in all media. Online submissions due by Monday, February 1.

ELIGIBILITY: Resident of MD, DC, VA, PA, DE, or WV. Must be age 18 or older.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: February 1, 2021 (online submission by 11:59 pm EST)

APPLICATION FEE: $35 (non-refundable)

Details here.

Celia Cruz

While looking for my old passports (don't ask why), as usual I found a lot of other things first...

These are some lithographs that I did for a printmaking class at the University of Washington School of Art, where I studied art from 1977-1981.  They depict The Queen of Salsa: Cuban superstar Celia Cruz.

DARKNESS WEAVES by Karl Edward Wagner

The late, great master Frank Frazetta was one of my very early idols and my main inspiration for applying to art school at the University of Washington.

Little did I know in 1977 that the art world thought little of "illustrators", regardless of their impact, skill and artistic footprint.

The below drawing, titled "The Hunter" is a pen and ink drawing on paper, and was part of a drawing assignment at the school. I recall the otherwise affable and nice drawing teacher denigrating it as "illustration rather than art."

Feh!

"The Hunter"
1978 pen and ink on paper by F. Lennox Campello
Done in the style of Frank Frazetta

A name option for the Washington Football Club

 A few years ago I told you in 2013 about my wife's suggestions for the name controversy for the football team now called The Washington Football team.

She had suggested in 2013 to 

(a) Just change the mascot to a red potato and then call them the Washington Redskin Potatoes... Cough, cough... and change the helmet design so that instead of the old one, it would now depict a ferocious-looking red skin potato!

(b) She also thought of another great name option: The Washington Federals!

Dan Snyder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The wounded deer

 The poem by Jose Marti goes like this:

Si ves un monte de espumas

Es mi verso lo que ves:

Mi verso es un monte, y es

Un abanico de plumas.

Mi verso es como un puñal

Que por el puño echa flor:

Mi verso es un surtidor

Que da un agua de coral.

Mi verso es de un verde claro

Y de un carmín encendido:

Mi verso es un ciervo herido

Que busca en el monte amparo.

Mi verso al valiente agrada:

Mi verso, breve y sincero,

Es del vigor del acero

Con que se funde la espada.  

And this is the painting that I did back in 1979 for an art school assignment at the University of Washington. The assignment was to create a new work, but in the style of a master.  This work is thus an adaptation of Jackson Pollock's style.  It is titled Mi verso es un ciervo herido que busca en el monte amparo.

Mi verso es un ciervo herido que busca en el monte amparo
1979 Acrylic on 600 pound paper by F. Lennox Campello

The Navy pilot

When I was in the Navy I did dozens of illustrations for newspapers (such as The Stars & Stripes), and sketches of his shipmates and other US Navy sailors in ports in the US and European ports.  Most of these drawings and paintings were given away to his shipmates, but I also kept many of them - this one has been in storage for over 40 years and was recently found!

The Navy Chief and the Pilot
1983 US Navy drawing by F. Lennox Campello

On the anniversary of a hero's death

Six years ago my father died on this day... here's my eulogy from that date:

"Hoy se ha caido otro roble en la selva del amargo exilio" is how I always thought that my father's eulogy would begin once he died.

"Today another oak falls in the jungle of bitter exile," began the eulogy for the man whose bloodlines my children and I carry on.

Florencio Campello Alonso died today at age 90 in Miami, the heart of the bitter Cuban Diaspora. Like many Cubans of his generation, he was the son of European immigrants to Cuba. His Galician parents left the scraggy mountains of northern Spain's ancient Celtic kingdom and in the first decade of the 1900s migrated to the new nation of Cuba upon its liberation from Spain.

Galicians have always been uneasy subjects of the Spanish crown, stubbornly hanging on to their ancient Celtic traditions, to their own language and to their bagpipes, so it is no historical surprise that they left their mountain homelands en-masse and headed to the new tropical paradise of Cuba, free from the heavy hand of the Spanish monarchy.

And thus it was never a surprise to me that my father was both a fighter against heavy-handed rulers, a lover of freedom, and one who was never afraid to re-start a life for the better, even if it involved discarding the old. 

My father could have been one of the privileged few who currently rule  atop the food chain of Cuba's Workers' Paradise. But instead of accepting the benefits of oppression, this most valiant of men chose the harsh path of right over wrong.

And he paid for it dearly (he spent years in Concentration Camps), but when he died, his soul was clean.

In his youth, my dad worked the brutal hours of the son of an immigrant who was slowly building a small financial empire in eastern Cuba. My father was pulled from school as soon as he learned to read and write, and like his two other brothers and eight sisters, he was expected to work and contribute to building a familial empire.

And he did, as my mother relates the stories of my father's childhood in the fields of eastern Cuba, a blond creole in a land of jingoist natives... he trying to out-Cuban the "real Cubans"... how he organized a labor union of the exploited Haitians who worked almost as slaves at the Los Canos Sugar Mill, how he joined a group of bearded rebels in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra in the fight against a tyrant, how he ran for the leadership of the Sugar Workers' Union and beat the Communists to the post, and how he spent years in a Castro Concentration Camp, jailed for the crime of refusing to join the Party, because he believed in Democracy and not Communism. 

And because of that stubbornness, in the 1960s he was offered the bitter pill of exile, and this brave man decided to choose family... and left his birth place, and thus became another immigrant within two familial generations and brought his wife and child to another new land.

And it is to him that I owe the greatest gift that a father can give a son: the opportunity to grow in freedom in the greatest nation in the history of this planet.

It is because of my father's courage that I was raised in this country and not in a land bloodied by brutality and oppression.

It is because of my father's teachings that I was raised with the conviction that freedom is not free and never to be taken for granted; after all, he fought for freedom and then Castro, the man who inspired  the fight, ended up being a worse dictator, eventually destroying all notions of freedom for all of his people.

It is because of my father that I was taught that every citizen owes his  nation some form of service, and that's the main reason that I signed (at age 17) to serve in the US Navy.

It is because of my father that I despise anyone who hides behind the mask of victimism to excuse failures and shortcomings.

When our family arrived in New York in the 1960s, my father began to work in a factory three days after he landed at the airport; my mother (who came from a privileged Cuban family and had never worked a day in her life) found a job as a seamstress five days later. That pattern was repeated for decades as they worked their way in a new nation.

"We thought we'd be back within a few years," was the answer given to me when I once asked the question about leaving their birthplace. When that didn't materialize, they became fierce Americans in the "United States of Americans" sense... these were the "America None Better!" set of immigrants, and in my Dad's case, you better be ready to fight if you dissed the USA.

"Americans"!

Always a fighter he was... and always for the right reasons.

Cubans are archaic immigrants... we love this great nation because we  recognize its singular and unique greatness; perhaps it is because our forebears had the same chance at greatness and blew it.

And my Dad loved this nation even more than he once loved Cuba... perhaps it is the genetic disposition of the serial immigrant. After all, his father had left his own ancient Celtic lands and kin for a new land... which he learned to love dearly.

My father always wanted to make sure that I knew that I was an "Americano" and not another forced-on label.

"Labels," he'd say, "are just a way to separate people."

By labels he meant "Hispanic" or "Latino" or anything with a "-" between two ethnic words.

I also remember as a kid in New York, when he bought a huge Hi-Fi record player-color-TV console... that thing was huge. He bought it "lay-away" and he'd pay $10 a week to the store and him and I would walk all the way from our house on Sackman Street to the store on Pitkin Avenue to make the payments every Saturday - he never missed a single payment, and that taught me a lesson.

It was soon playing my Dad's favorite music, which oddly enough was Mexican music (Cuban music was a close second)... and he knew all the words to every charro song.

Guadalajara en un llano, Mejico en una laguna... 

Guadalajara en un llano, Mejico en una laguna...Me he de comer esa tuna 

Me he de comer esa tuna.... aunque me espine la mano.

That Jorge Negrete song... being shouted often on weekends at the top of his lungs from our apartment in a mostly Italian neighborhood in East New York in Brooklyn must have raised some eyebrows.

My dad and I watched Neil Armstrong land on the moon on that TV set... we also watched loads of Mets games... and in 1969 and 1972 went to Shea Stadium to see the Mets win in '69 and lose in '72. He really loved baseball and he really loved those Mets!

When I joined the Navy at age 17, my first duty station was USS SARATOGA, which at the time was stationed in Mayport in Florida, so my Dad decided to migrate south to Florida and moved to Miami... just to be close to me.

He and my mother spent the next 40 years in the same apartment while I was stationed all over the world.

When I visited him today in Miami, he looked good and freshly shaven... this is a good thing, as my father was a freak about hygiene... and that's a common "creole" trait.

The Hospice nurse almost teared up when I told her that my parents have been married for 60 years.

I looked at this old "gallego"... his skin as white as paper, his eyes as blue as the sky, and his head (once full of blond hair) as bald and shiny as the old Cuban sing song ("Mira la Luna, mira al Sol... mira la calva de ese.....") and I saw the generations of Neanderthals, Denisovans and Gallego Homo Sapiens that led to my bloodlines... the generations of fighters, of strugglers, and of tough guys who didn't take no for an answer and who made a better place for others. 

And I felt at peace and grateful.

And as my father died tonight, after an extubation,  all that I can think  to say to him is "Thank you for your courage... from me, and from my children... and soon from their children. You opened a whole new world for them."

I love you Dad... Un Abrazo Fuerte! Thank you for your gifts to me and my children and it is no coincidence that you died on El Dia de Los Reyes.

Call For Entry: Hotel Indigo

Quarterly Exhibitions at Hotel Indigo

Application Deadline: Rolling (submissions reviewed bi-annually)

Maryland Art Place (MAP), in partnership with Hotel Indigo is pleased to announce an open ‘Call to Artists’. 

As an extension of MAP’s annual IMPACT public art partnership projects, MAP is working with Hotel Indigo to offer rotating exhibitions in Hotel indigo’s library and Poets Modern Cocktails and Eats. This opportunity is available to visual artists living or working in Maryland. Maryland Art Place will curate four exhibitions a year based on submissions entered through a rolling basis. Hotel Indigo, Baltimore Downtown is a boutique hotel located in Baltimore, MD. MAP has been working closely with the hotel since it opened, selecting and installing the hotel’s permanent artwork collection including works by Jared Ragland, Gary Kachadourian and Christos Palios. 

Hotel Indigo and MAP share the same vision of supporting working artists in the region, and both look forward to their continued partnership and the rotation of quarterly exhibitions. 

For more information, visit www.baltimoreindigohotel.com. 

General Guidelines & Information: Details and application here.